agrl_innovations_in_ssa.pdf?utm_content=buffercb41d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

Looking to the future
Challenges
As Africa faces the challenge of creating favourable conditions for enabling the innovation
required to stimulate poverty reduction and agricultural growth, the context for this is
changing. Increasing population, rapid urbanisation, land resource degradation, climate
change and the present disarray in world commodity markets pose serious challenges. Global
integration of many agricultural supply chains are placing increasing control in the hands of
large-scale retailers, processors and exporters, whose compliance conditions are often difficult
for smallholder farmers to meet.
Until recently agricultural growth had resulted from an expansion of the area under crops or
grazing rather than higher yields. However, demographic pressures have largely exhausted
available land and in many areas, average farm sizes are falling, with typically areas of 2–5 ha
dominating. Unfortunately land degradation has often been accompanied by increasing land
scarcity and deforestation, shorter fallow periods, mono-cropping and low fertiliser applications
that have all contributed to declining soil fertility and soil erosion (Sanchez et al., 1997). In
addition climate change is likely to compound many of these problems. This combination of
increasing land scarcity, land degradation and climate change means that future innovation
must of necessity include improved NRM practices including CA, as illustrated by the case
studies in Malawi and Zambia. Rapid urbanisation will place additional responsibility on rural
areas to produce surpluses at affordable prices. IAR4D has the potential to play a leading role
in the scenarios being played out as a key framework that allows the integration of NRM issues
with other vital issues in agricultural development.
Given the heterogeneity within African agriculture participatory research involving scientists and
farmers will become increasingly important, not only to identify practices for specific conditions,
but also to ensure that farmers are increasingly able to drive the research agenda. Improved
agronomic practices are likely to form a major component of these efforts, and this requires
a sound understanding of existing farming systems and farmers’ constraints and priorities.
Technology development requires not only early interaction between farmers and researchers
but also an increased focus on building and maintaining effective extension systems.
Advances in the biological sciences, including molecular biology and genetic engineering, offer
considerable potential to develop new crop varieties that can prosper in Africa’s drought/
flood and pest-prone environments. However they require increasingly specialised staff and
100 Agricultural Innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa